The present application relates generally to an improved data processing and presentation apparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for rendering information regarding objects stored in linear storage media.
Linear storage media may include magnetic tape storage, such as the Linear Tape Open (LTO). In general, data is stored on linear storage tape in blocks of fixed or variable size. Managing data blocks on linear storage tape may be done in various ways, such as using the Tape Archive Format (TAR), a data backup system, a data storage system, as well as a file system on tape. The Long Term File System (LTFS) is a file system that allows a user to store individual files to a tape, in the same manner as files are stored on other file-based storage device, such as a hard disk, a FLASH memory, a Solid State Drive (SSD) or any other conventional file storage medium. To use a tape cartridge with LTFS, the cartridge has to first be formatted, similar to formatting of hard drives. A formatted tape may be loaded into a drive, mounted by LTFS as a file system, and then be accessed and used to store and retrieve files.
Tape drives however, have a slow access time and behave very differently than these other storage devices. When reading a file, the tape drive has to seek to the file location before the reading of the file may occur. This seek operation may take anywhere from seconds to minutes depending on the file location on the tape relative to the current position of the tape.
The manipulation of data in a data processing system is well known in the prior art. Data may be manipulated in many ways in a modern state-of-the-art data processing system including: data accessing, data encoding, data communications, data compression, data conversion, data entry, data exchange, data filing, data linking, data locking, data manipulation, data mapping, data modeling, data processing, data recording, data sorting, and data transferring. The large amounts of data that are available to the user of modern state-of-the-art data processing system often become overwhelming in magnitude and complexity. These situations may often arise in the creation and execution of multimedia presentations.
Data processing systems are capable of communicating information to users in many formats, including: text, graphics, sounds, animated graphics, synthesized speech, and video. Multimedia presentations employ a data processing system to combine such information formats into a coherent and comprehensive presentation to the user.
As a result of the increasing complexity of data processing systems and with the introduction of multimedia presentations, attempts have been made to simplify the interface between a user and the large amounts of data present within a modern data processing system. One example of an attempt to simplify the interface between a user and a data processing system is the utilization of a so-called graphic user interface (GUI) to provide an intuitive and graphical interface between the user and the data processing system. A GUI is an interface system, including devices, by which a user interacts with a system, system components, and/or system applications via windows or view ports, icons, menus, pointing devices, etc.